Tracy Eberly and his chihuahua chorus seem to think the death of a Minneapolis cycle commuter named Dennis Dumm should serve as a warning to clueless cyclists that what we are doing is dangerous and that we deserve what happens to us if we should be so stupid as to ride to work in a designated bike lane.

Believe me, we know there are people like that (Tracy) out there.

Tracy is being extremely stupid and insensitive, but I don't think he deserves to die for it.

Here's my story.

I was cycling into downtown Minneapolis on Glenwood Avenue one morning where the street passes over I-394 before it heads under the municipal parking ramps near Target Center. Glenwood is not a heavily traveled street in that area and is divided into separate one-way, two-lane overpasses heading east and west. Each intersection in that area is controlled by stop lights.

I was in a marked bike lane on the left side of the road when a semi passed me and started to drift quickly into my lane. On my left was a higher-than-normal curb. On my right were the semi-trailer's wheels closing fast. I was clipped into my pedals and had no quick bail-out to the left or right.

For a moment, I couldn't believe he was pulling into my lane. He could not turn left at the approaching intersection. Fortunately, I didn't think too long about how he was in the wrong and was able to stop just before his rear axle crushed me.

The driver was not being aggressive. He probably had no sense as he passed me how fast I was going. Maybe I was invisible to him. But he was the one operating unsafely and inattentively according to Minnesota law.

Minn. Stat. §169.18 Driving rules.

(3) the operator of a motor vehicle overtaking a bicycle or individual
proceeding in the same direction on the roadway shall leave a safe
distance, but in no case less than three feet clearance, when passing
the bicycle or individual and shall maintain clearance until safely
past the overtaken bicycle or individual.

(d) Whenever a bicycle lane has been established on a roadway, any
person operating a motor vehicle on such roadway shall not drive in the
bicycle lane except to park where parking is permitted, to enter or
leave the highway, or to prepare for a turn as provided in section
169.19, subdivision 1.

If I hadn't been more aware, I'd have been crushed and the subject of Tracy Eberly's derision.

I feel for the driver whose truck crushed the cyclist today, but based on my interpretation, it is his case that should serve as an example.

Minn. Stat. § 169.19 Turning, starting, and signaling.

Subdivision 1. Turning at intersection. The driver of a vehicle intending to turn at an intersection shall do so as follows:

(g) Whenever it is necessary for the driver of a motor vehicle to cross
a bicycle lane adjacent to the driver's lane of travel to make a turn,
the driver shall drive the motor vehicle into the bicycle lane prior to
making the turn, and shall make the turn, yielding the right-of-way to
any vehicles approaching so close thereto as to constitute an immediate
hazard.

If he'd followed the law, the cyclist would not be dead.

I invite Tracy to meet me personally and explain to me why I deserved to die.

Today was also the Ride of Silence around the country. Minneapolis organizers modified the route to pass by the location of the accident.

Yesterday, I posted about how I appreciate Jeff's presence here, and he sounds mystified that I should hold him up as an example of civil disagreement. And Mitch Berg says: "I think blogs get the commenters they deserve."

A
bicyclist was killed early this morning near downtown Minneapolis when
a truck driver turned into the cycling lane on Park Avenue, crushing
the rider.

Police were questioning the driver about the
accident, which occurred about 7:40 a.m. at the intersection of Park
and E. 14th Street. They also blocked off the street as they tried to
reconstruct the accident.

This juxtaposition of stories on subsequent pages of the Strib is not funny.

I have a good friend who has been undergoing treatment for a life-threatening cancer. Developing an appetite and eating enough has been a big problem. He's not alone.

Severe malnutrition and weight loss play a
role in at least one in five cancer deaths. Yet nutrition too often is
an afterthought until someone's already in trouble....Tempting the palate is a huge hurdle: At diagnosis, up to a quarter of
patients already have their appetite sapped, and most treatments can
bring side effects that worsen the problem. Aside from the well-known
nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, some cancers inhibit absorption of the
nutrients patients force down.

The legislature approved a medical marijuana bill, but tax increases and health care for the poor aren't the only items Governor Pawlenty is going to save us from.

My 70-year-old physician friend is unlikely to be in a Delano crack house any time soon. He's got a few other things on his plate.

Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, who is a police chief, said the
potential benefits of the legislation didn't outweigh its drawbacks.
Legalizing marijuana even for limited circumstances will lead to
problems for officers, he said. "I'm just not willing to give up on the
war on drugs," Cornish said.

I'm sure the 2200 citizens in the chief's jurisdiction are feeling safer now and its officers are relieved criminals will not be pouring into the state. Meanwhile, I feel nausea, and my friend is in the hospital getting forced hydration.

I learned long ago that your opponents can either make you better
or make you worse. The outcome is largely your choice.

Over the last decade, we've seen a coarsening of what passes for public discourse and a lack of respect for our opponents coming from both sides. Pres. Obama's practice of engaging people with whom he may disagree may have helped him get elected, but it still runs counter to
the prevailing winds in politics — seen most recently in the current
impasse over the Minnesota state budget.

Although the legislators I heard today on MPR were conciliatory and talked about how hard and well both parties worked together in committee, when it came to actual votes and legislative outcomes, their respective political positions seemed as polarized than ever.

More than a year ago, Jeff Dege showed up here, attracted by an American Crosscut post about gun rights, and left his first strongly worded comment. Since then, he's stuck around and done more of the same — 124 times in all by my official count.

Throughout it all, Jeff has been provocative and challenging, but he's also been civil and careful to back up his point of view. (His citation of the Laffer study on rich and poor states will likely inspire a few posts here.) His comments have also done much to promote discussion, force me to sharpen my thinking and to clarify my positions. We don't often agree, and I don't expect we will ever sing Kumbaya together in New Hampshire.

But like my other readers who usually agree with me, he has made this a better, more interesting blog.

Minnesota House Tax Committee Chair Ann Lenczewski is not only one of the state's smartest people on taxes, she has a great way of explaining things. Here's a quote from her videotaped testimony on balancing the budget.

Why a mix of taxes and cuts? You can absolutely target tax increases on the poor. You can absolutely target tax increases on the middle class and on the rich. It's pretty darn hard to cut the rich.

On the off chance some readers rely on me for national political news.... I used to think Dick Cheney had suffered a minor stroke, but now I think the grimace on his sinister side must be the result of trying to keep a straight face as he lied about Iraq, torture and other manipulations yet to be disclosed.

Pres. Obama's general stance of moving on from the mistakes of the Bush administration made sense to me. That's how I'd run an organization. But with Cheney's Torture Tour attempts to obscure his record and impeach the president's judgment, Cheney is asking for it. I hope the current administration will be just a bit less circumspect about the dirt it uncovers from the last one.

The traditional news media is heading way beyond lapdog status into fully submissive, peeing on the floor mode. It's lapping up the red herring story that Nancy Pelosi could've stopped torture and didn't, while the man who always had other priorities comes out of his bunker to finally tell the "truth."

Cheney gets his 20 minutes over and over, and the media has barely acknowledged how this man and his cohorts have been manipulating them. For example, how the Bush Pentagon populated TV news with "expert military analysts" who just happened to work for companies with fat Pentagon contracts.

At least there's a chance that the viewers of Fox News might get some actual critical reporting by reading their men's magazines.

Seriously. GQ is breaking the story of how Donald Rumsfeld cynically slapped Bible quotes on classified intelligence briefings for Pres. Bush. Playboy.com walks you through a waterboarding (see video).

I checked Maxim to see if it had a scoop, too. The current issue has a story titled "The scariest man in America." I couldn't find it online, but I have an idea who it might be about.

Art-A-Whirl won out yesterday over pounding into a morning west wind for 25 miles, and I took my friend on a whirlwind tour of Northeast. We stopped at Behind Bars bike shop and I ran into three people I knew from very distinct walks of my life — the managing director of an arts organization where I serve on the board, the guy who had the locker next to me at my former golf club and Harv from Drinking Liberally.

My friend Steve has the metabolism I have sadly left behind, so between us in the space of about three hours, but not bilaterally, we had a pulled pork sandwich, a large brat, a chili dog and pork satay. The beer was distributed far more equitably, and included a round of Surly Bender, Surly Furious and a draft beer with Maple (Hat?) in the name and apricot in the recipe.

We listened to music behind the 331 Club and later for a bit at Grumpy's. At 331, a young woman was grading papers at a picnic table and fending off guys who seemed to know her. If you're in English 101 at a local college and get a paper back with a grade but no marks on it, now you know why.

Nearby, a guy wore what looked like the top half of a Goldie the Gopher costume. We never saw the bottoms.

We went into one gallery featuring the mixed media sculpture of Michael Thomsen and Kyle Fokken plus Nicholas Harper's painting. Thomsen's work is in the form of altar-like wall installations that fuse all the world's religions, while focusing on the sacraments of mescaline and peyote. I've long admired Fokken's fusion of dogs, household junk, children's toys and Mad Max-style military hardware. Every time I see his work, I'm half glad I didn't bring my checkbook, so I can let pass the urge to take one home.

Because with all three artists, you'd need a big house to put one of their works on display. Not so much because of their physical size, but because of the psychic space they command.

Riding around the area on this crisp day, past venerable neighborhood bars strung like charms along the old street car line, it was hard not to think: great neighborhood, great city, great country.

"Enhanced Interrogation Studies is an exciting new multi-disciplinary field," said CIC director Jane Goodwell. "Recent events have dramatized the importance of finding enhanced techniques that will be effective in interrogating fanatical stateless combatants. Too many current methods rely on brutal centuries-old practices and do not take into account advances in medicine, brain science, bio-stimulation technology and bridging cultural differences.

"Vice President Cheney has passed the torch to his alma mater, and we are proud to take up his quest for information that will keep America safe.

"Professor Yoo has demonstrated a profound understanding of the legal and ethical dimensions of exacting confessions and actionable intelligence without torture. In his work at the center, he will collaborate with a diverse cohort of UW researchers and thinkers, ranging from physical education, photography and music to corrections, livestock studies and destination management."

The CIC is located in the school's Health Sciences Building, where "putting the departments together would allow them to do more than they would if
they were apart."

*****

Okay, I might've stretched a few details. But this torture story is real.

Next Sunday, Katherine Kersten returns to the Strib with a weekly op-ed column. So does Nick Coleman. Although the ad says "familiar faces in new places," one of the faces looks to have had a makeover.

In comments on an earlier post, our ever-reliable cross-divider Jeff Dege tells us that the government is "stealing more than a third of our nation's wealth." And on another, Craig Westover asserts that state employers like the University of Minnesota must pay talented people more to compensate for the differential in state taxes.

I could answer Jeff that most thieves don't fix your street, defend your borders, educate your children or keep the homeless out of your back yard, just for starters. And I might ask both of them whether they believe incomes would remain stable if government stopped collecting taxes — or if the same market forces that adjust salaries upward might just ratchet pay down to something approximating today's take-home pay.

Either way, I suspect most of the supposed savings from minimal government would evaporate. But libertarians will never take my word for it. And I might even be wrong. So the only way to settle this is to establish a true libertarian state to test the premise.

If it works, then progressives should support deep tax cuts and send Jeff and Craig apologies. If it implodes, they should promise to take Rush Limbaugh for a November canoe ride on Lake Superior and fill his non-government-approved life preserver with sand.

I nominate Utah as the experimental state, although Idaho, Oklahoma or Northern California might suffice. Their selection would minimize dislocation of the population and would not face much opposition from local officials. Plus, they are already well on their to having their own armies.

We'd have to agree on ground rules. For example, how much infrastructure, including roads, dams, schools, sewage treatment plants, airports and other features of the hated confiscatory regime would be allowed to stand? If these ill-gotten public assets are kept, how much compensation would be required to level the playing field?

The new state would be given dominion over its natural resources, I suppose. And it could have our U.S. Constitution, with the Bill of Rights optional, just so the new government didn't have to start from scratch remaking its laws in Hayek's image and likeness.

I don't think we'd have to restrict cross-border travel, but neighboring states and the federal government would be free to tax the earnings of Libertaria's citizens when they worked outside utopia.Federal military bases, government offices and various agencies would have to leave, and the spigot of federal dollars would be turned off — along with all federal regulation of business, agriculture, forests, food and drugs, water quality, auto and airline safety, etc.

This wouldn't be secession, just a bold experiment in the exercise of state's rights.

Why limit this to a thought experiment? Surely we can find a volunteer.